At Maybrook school, moving up and moving out

School has last graduation

Maybrook — Maybrook Elementary School had its last moving up graduation Monday, as parents, teachers and students awaited a second school budget vote that will determine which school building they will be headed to next year.

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By JOHN SULLIVAN

recordonline.com

By JOHN SULLIVAN

Posted Jun. 18, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By JOHN SULLIVAN
Posted Jun. 18, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

Maybrook — Maybrook Elementary School had its last moving up graduation Monday, as parents, teachers and students awaited a second school budget vote that will determine which school building they will be headed to next year.

The vote, slated for Tuesday, follows one to close the school, as well as a defeat of the district's budget by voters angered by a proposed 9.8 percent tax levy increase. Students could end up at Berea or Montgomery elementary schools, while teachers must wait until after the second vote to know whether they will continue to be teaching.

The small, fairly cheerful graduation held in the school's 389-capacity gym-auditorium was punctuated by the whooping parents, the occasional crying toddler and the typical troublesome microphone.

"I'll shout until it gets fixed," said the schools' principal, Anne Sussdorff, who is retiring.

Amid the seeming regularity, however, was the sober realization there would be no "next year" of the sounds of laughter, crying and singing returning to the 90-year-old building.

"My hope is that the voices of young children will again fill these halls some time in the near future," Sussdorff said, hopefully.

"I am just so sad that no one is going to have the privilege to be in this school again," said graduating fifth-grader Delores Mora Tejeda, while reading from her award-winning essay on "What Maybrook Means to Me."

Reactions to the closure of the three-story building with 12 classrooms and just more than 200 students was what one would expect of a small community losing its beloved school. "We were a family," said Katherine McEachin, a school aide who worked in the main office.

"Above and beyond," chimed in Mary Starro, a door greeter for 14 years.

Starro, who always kept a box of tissues — only the softest — at the desk where visitors and students signed in to the school. On Monday, she had two boxes — a box of Kleenex with Aloe and a box of Puffs — on hand for the additional anticipated tears.